


restless

by tusktooth



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Insomnia, M/M, Post-IT (2017), Sleepovers, bg reddie/benverly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 09:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21195173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tusktooth/pseuds/tusktooth
Summary: Since they defeated It, Stan rarely slept through the night.





	restless

**Author's Note:**

> i hope this fic doesnt come off as creepy dklsfjfsdsa but stan is just very observant and also it was a middle of the night fic idea  
[come say hi!](http://tdeckers.tumblr.com/)

Though he knew that it wasn’t necessarily acceptable, ever since they fought It, Stan had taken solace in watching his friends sleep.

Perhaps he would have realized the peace of it sooner if it weren’t for the fact that sleeping was never really a problem for him until after. Now his nights were wracked with the terrible things he had seen in the house, notably the sight of a disfigured Judith with rows and rows of sharp teeth protruding from her mouth to pierce into his face. After you had seen that, and so close, it was difficult to ever quite block it out of your mind.

Even about four years later, it still haunted him often, no longer a nightly occurrence, but still there on most nights, sometimes more than once.

Sleepovers with all of the losers were relatively rare, what with Bev living in Portland and the fact that Eddie’s mom still thought they were a terrible influence on him, but on the weekend before school was set to start in Derry, before they began their senior year, they all got together to sleep in the clubhouse, which was frankly a disgusting place to spend an entire night, as one last hoorah.

Someone had snuck in a bottle of vodka and they spent the night catching up with Bev and sharing their goals for the year and beyond, all of them eager to escape Derry permanently, to escape their past.

It was a good time, but eventually, they all had drifted asleep, including Stan at the time, but he found himself waking again only about an hour later with the image of the woman planted firmly in his mind.

His heart was beating far faster than it should, the terror consuming him for probably the third time that week, but the sight of his friends sleeping calmed him. They were quiet and they were peaceful and they were  _ safe _ .

The way they slept was peculiar too.

Mike was lying on his back, limbs splayed in every direction. While awake, he was often the most reserved member of the group and preferred to stay under the radar, but in sleep, he took up the most space of any of them. Stan wished he had the confidence to take up more room in his life in general. Mike had a brilliant mind that often went unnoticed because he kept his thoughts to himself when he should be sharing them with the world.

Richie and Eddie had fallen asleep back to back, but at some point during the night they had both turned onto their backs and now Richie’s head rested upon Eddie’s chest and Eddie’s arm was thrown over his shoulder. He wondered if this was familiar to them or just an accident that seemed to be fated. It was no secret that their incessant arguing was due to something deeper that was hidden between them, a secret from the world and maybe even from themselves.

Ben slept on his side, facing Beverly. Perhaps he had been watching her earlier, just as Stan was watching all of them now, finding calm in the peace of the sleep of others. His crush on her had endured since he kissed her and freed her from the deadlights, strong even throughout her very brief not-relationship with Bill from middle school. Maybe his crush was for nothing, but Stan suspected that there might be something on her end as well.

Bev slept curled in on herself, as if she were protecting her body from a threat that wasn’t there. She slept more fitfully, moving around much more than the others did and mumbling nonsense in her sleep at times. Though she had never mentioned it, he suspected that she suffered from a similar problem as him, except when the nightmares filled her mind, she didn’t wake up so quickly.

It was a thing that brought Stan great shame, but Bill was the one he watched sleep. There was nothing that Stan really found peculiar about how he slept (on his stomach and occasionally snoring quietly) but he was always the first one to catch his eye and the one he focused on the longest. His peace in sleep was perhaps the most remarkable to Stan. He had been through so much, what with the death of his brother, but he still managed to sleep soundly. That was why Stan looked, was the lie he tried to convince himself.

But, on this particular night, he glanced toward the spot where Bill was supposed to be sleeping only to find it shockingly empty.

A tap on his shoulder got his attention. It was Bill, eyes somewhat clear as if he’d been awake for a while. He nodded toward the ladder and quietly climbed up it, keeping the creaking of the wood to a minimum.

As soon as the brisk midnight air hit his bare arms, he cursed himself for not throwing on the sweatshirt that he’d packed in case it got too cold at night. Sure, it was summer, but the nights still got cold some times.

“I c-can share,” Bill offered from where he was seated on the ground.

Stan hesitated for a moment, unsure if sharing a blanket was a good idea, as if the proximity would suddenly make the truth of his feelings toward his friend hang openly in the night sky, but a gust of wind blew across his arms and he decided that warmth was the priority.

“Thanks,” he said. “It’s kind of cold tonight.”

Bill shrugged. “Summer’s almost over.”

He sighed. “I wish it wasn’t. This is our last year together.”

“I don’t think so,” he replied. “After we’ve all shared so much d-darkness, I’m not sure any of us would allow the light that came of it to slip between our f-fingertips.”

“I just don’t know if it’ll be the same after this,” he clarified. “I mean, it’s already been harder to hang with Bev since she moved. Imagine what it will be like when we’re all in different places.”

“D-Different and worse aren’t the same thing. We’ll find a way. We ha-have to.”

“I guess,” he said quietly.

“Were you watching everyone sleep,” Bill asked after a moment.

He could feel the blood rush to his cheeks but hoped it was masked by the darkness of the night. “It’s calming, seeing everyone else rest when I can’t sleep. I know that’s probably super weird.”

Bill shook his head. “Not w-weird.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “Everyone watches people they c-care about sleep. They just usually keep it s-secret.”

“Ben watches Bev, I think,” he commented. “I hope things work out for them.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “She watches him t-too, she’s just more subtle about it.”

“Do you watch anyone?” Stan asked, turning to meet his bright blue eyes, which shone in the moonlight.

“I w-wa-w-watch-” he started, trailing off at the end and taking a deep breath before starting over. “I watch you.”

His eyes widened. “Me? How do I sleep?”

He laughed. “Like the dead. You n-never move an inch or m-make a sound.”

“I wish I slept like the dead,” he remarked with a sigh. “It seems like I can barely sleep at all, ever since It.”

“I know how that feels,” Bill replied, a solemn expression on his face. “I still see G-Georgie every night. I just want to be able to sleep like b-before.”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “But you always sleep through the night. This is the first time I’ve caught you awake.”

“So you watch me t-too? I haven’t slept through the n-night in a long time. It’s all p-pure chance I guess.”

“I watch everyone,” Stan reminded him before relenting, “But maybe I watch you the most. You snore, by the way.”

“So I’m told.”

“It’s not annoying though,” he said. “It’s just a quiet reminder that you’re still breathing. Pure silence can be unsettling.”

“I d-don’t mind your silence. It’s v-very you. Standing tall and unb-bothered,” Bill replied. “You’re always q-quiet, but that doesn’t mean you’re not  _ there _ .”

“I’m always here,” he agreed.

“You know, if you ever have a n-nightmare when I’m around, you can wake me up.”

“Bill, apparently you already have sleeping issues as it is. I don’t want to add to that,” he replied. “But likewise. You can always wake me up too.”

“It’s n-nice,” he said. “Not having to be alone.”

Stan noticed that Bill was holding his hand out to him under the blanket and he took it in his own. “It’s perfect.”


End file.
